How to Ruin a Sales Pitch

Do you feel overwhelmed when giving a sales presentation? Do you find it challenging to keep the attention of your prospect? As simple as the idea of talking about a product you know very well may sound, there’s really more to it than just talking about a few benefits and features. If benefits and features is the typical approach you take with your pitches, it could be costing you more clients than it gains.

So how can you make sure you’re providing and developing a solid, effective and well-received pitch? Well, here are a few things that you definitely want to avoid:

No Reference to Clients Needs

All the advice in the world won’t save you if you don’t put your client first. I’ve gone into boardrooms and watched people butcher presentations by not delivering a message that connected with their audience. It’s important to know whom you’re talking to and ensure that the message you deliver is targeted specifically towards their needs and problems.

When you’re talking about your products value; ask a prospect questions about how they think this could be used in their business. Ideally, you want to have a good understanding of their business needs and wants before the pitch but sometimes that’s not the case.

When you don’t have prior information on a prospect, ask them about their issues. You would be surprised by how powerful the usage of questions and engagement can be in a pitch. It allows you get into your prospects world and truly identify what their issues are.

Lack of Preparation

Preparing for presentations is far from easy. In fact, it should be the most time consuming aspect of the presentation and pitching process. The more time you invest into developing and rehearsing your presentation; the more confident and comfortable you’ll feel when you make your pitch.

One thing that I’ve noticed after chatting with a handful of professionals about their own tactics is that preparation tactics differ for everyone. Some people need to write out their presentation in full as a script while others simply need jot notes.

I like to start with key talking points and then take those talking points and build a script. This way, I know the most important points for each slide and can improvise on the fly depending on the prospects reactions and questions to the presentation.

Information overload

Minimize the amount of stats, facts and analytical information in your presentation. Instead of trying to get into the nuts and bolts of your product or service, focus on delivering a message that has a good blend of both logic and emotion. This combination will allow you to better connect with your audience and deliver a message that is easy to understand.

An easy way to ensure that you’re not going into information overload is to inject storytelling into your presentation. Storytelling and sales go together like peas in a pod. People have a difficult time remembering facts and stats while have an easy time remembering and sharing stories. Focus on creating a compelling story and sharing it to deliver the value of your offering.

Conclusion

It’s ok if you have made one or two of these mistakes when delivering a pitch or presentation in the past. As long as you can learn from your mistakes and avoid making the same ones over again, you’ll be fine. My hope is that this blog post will help you to deliver captivating sales presentations in the future.

Are there any other big mistakes you should avoid when delivering a sales presentation?